This Is Hard To Watch

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]Jeremy Hambly from The Quartering disturbs me. What disturbs me is watching somebody who seems psychologically trapped inside the internet. [clears throat] The worst part is the more I understood how the internet can magnify traits that were probably already there. Before we get into this, I want to be clear this is not a let's all dunk on The Quartering video. I'm not making this because I think I'm morally above Jeremy. Honestly, parts of this made me uncomfortable because I understand creator anxiety way more than people realize. I understand checking analytics too much. I understand feeling your stomach drop when views slow down. I made the decision to change careers later in life and went all in on this channel. When I say I understand the fear side of this, I mean it. a line where creator stress stops looking like pressure and starts looking corrosive.

[00:00:43]And the more and more I saw clips like the ones we're going to watch, the less I saw a confident successful creator and the more I saw somebody emotionally fused to the machine that made him successful. That's what disturbed me.

[00:00:53]Not just the behavior, the dependence.

[00:00:56]>> [music] >> So, I don't know if it was this specific video because there are so many identical to what we're about to watch.

[00:01:04]But when I'd seen similar videos to this over and over like a couple months apart, that's where my perception of The Quartering started to change. Because it stopped feeling like internet drama and started feeling like somebody describing a life they built and then realizing they don't know how to emotionally exist outside of it. You'll see what I mean.

[00:01:22]Check this out.

[00:01:23]>> Um I've been very very stressed over the past week or two. And I've tried to not let it but um I I can't figure it out and I need your help. Something is really weird with my YouTube channel. My normal videos get between 100 and 150,000 views.

[00:01:44]The second video which should have done really well 50,000. The third video which should have done really well 59,000. I'm done antagonizing people on Twitter. I'm done with it because I just lose. Even though these most of these idiots were just coming at me with flat out lies, I got embroiled in it and I gave them what they wanted and I lost course. I'm not going to do that anymore on Twitter, okay? My channel seems to be quarantined in some way.

[00:02:15]Some way that I haven't been able to detect yet, but is supported by all sorts of anecdotal evidence that I'm going to share with you. To help share not just my videos, but other people's videos in this space.

[00:02:30]And I need you to give me feedback because YouTube is slowly killing us. They're slowly pushing out independent creators. I know this is what's happening, but we still have to fight back. And I'm sorry I don't have the energy, but I'm just I'm just frustrated and tired. Please help not just me, but other independent creators continue to exist here on YouTube and continue to push back against what is an obvious bias. Now, I could just have a weird fixation on the quartering, but I think most of you would agree, whether you like Jeremy or not, that clip is uncomfortable for a multitude of reasons. What I heard was a guy who has attention, money, momentum, businesses, and audience, and still somehow feels disconnected from real life. That's the part people should pay attention to because I don't think the internet creates these traits out of nowhere. I think it rewards them. It amplifies them. And eventually your entire life becomes a scoreboard. Views, money, critics, momentum. After a while, real life starts feeling emotionally flat because real life doesn't constantly tell you whether you're winning. So, Jeremy has ambition, but this isn't ambition anymore. It's dependence. I'm going to be very blunt here. Jeremy has this recurring pattern where every normal creator problem becomes an existential crisis. A dip in views becomes persecution. Criticism becomes censorship. Algorithm trouble becomes conspiracy. Every single slowdown sounds like the fall of Rome.

[00:03:52]And look, I understand creator stress deeply. I've had some videos perform well and I've had many videos that barely move. You think I don't want to complain sometimes? Of course I do. I'm all in on this thing. But my audience is not my emotional support infrastructure.

[00:04:07]That's the line. Your viewers can support you. They can watch. They can subscribe, become members. But they are not responsible for carrying the emotional weight of your business model.

[00:04:16]Even though he probably believes he's manipulating his audience into believing these little woe is me videos are him being really transparent with them.

[00:04:24]That's not what's happening at all. He's burden shifting and eventually crisis becomes the product as it has on the quartering. The panic becomes the pitch and that's where this starts becoming even unhealthier than it already was. So what I'm going to show you in the second clip here is the other side of the problem. The first clip is internal collapse. The next clip is external compensation. Watch how fast criticism turns into status defense. This doesn't sound like calm confidence. This sounds personal. Back to getting older, thinking about like, man, you know, I don't have any kids and you know, all these things that pop in your head.

[00:04:57]Uh, you know, I guess it's like a midlife crisis. I've also been freaking grinding on YouTube for basically the last 3 years, you know, daily videos on one or two channels, multiple daily videos.

[00:05:12]This is really what kind of was like an epiphany for me.

[00:05:15]A bunch of people backed me on SubscribeStar. The reality is because people chose to back me there, I could afford to maybe not do five videos a day five days a week.

[00:05:26]That kind of started me thinking about like, okay, like maybe you don't have to work so much. So in terms of like mental health, you know, I have this thing that is not unique, um, where I I feel alone all the time even though I'm not.

[00:05:50]Um it makes it really, really difficult to relate to anybody. I wouldn't say that I have any close friends.

[00:05:59]Um like they may think we're close, but like I don't view them in that way and that's I don't mean to be mean. I'm also a workaholic, so it makes it difficult to uh uh you know, garner friendships or even relationships. I mean, in my whole life, you know, certainly affected my marriage, of course. If I have a great day, let's say upload four or five videos that all get at least 100,000 views each and they're all monetized, that is a massive dopamine hit. That's big money.

[00:06:32]I go a day and a bunch of my videos get demonetized, it's like the exact opposite. You feel like you lost out.

[00:06:37]Um I I feel incapable of taking a day off.

[00:06:42]I do five to seven videos a day on the quartering and I'm happy to do that.

[00:06:51]But I have a really difficult time relaxing, allowing myself to relax.

[00:06:58]I was lucky enough to get a PlayStation 4, 5 and an Xbox Series X at launch.

[00:07:05]Haven't even turned them on still, but I've never allowed myself to play the games, just play them.

[00:07:13]Because I could always be making content.

[00:07:15]Now I've worked on this mentality to try and overcome it, be able to enjoy something.

[00:07:28]But I'm incapable. Of all the confident people I've come across in my life, none of them have ever sound this desperate to prove that they're confident. Because underneath all the money talk, all the numbers behind his stupid coffee, the look how successful I am stuff. I don't see a secure man. I see panic personified wearing a Rolex. When your identity gets fused to performance, criticism stops feeling like disagreement and starts feeling existential. Every critic becomes a threat. Every slow down becomes humiliation. Every single public challenge becomes something you have to crush immediately because it feels like your identity slipping. And that's where Jeremy's ego and grievance feed one another. His ego is saying, "Look how successful I am." But the grievance is saying, "Look how unfairly I'm treated."

[00:08:11]And somehow, astonishingly to me, the audience is expected to emotionally invest in both, and apparently they do.

[00:08:19]That's the part I just can't get past because you can't constantly flex how successful you are and then emotionally recruit your audience into feeling like you're barely surviving. You got to pick one, Jeremy. Which are you? The untouchable empire builder or the wounded victim of the algorithm? Now, I know I'm not telling you anything you don't know because you know exactly what you're doing. I watched June the King's 3-hour documentary on the Quartering.

[00:08:42]I'm going to link it in the description.

[00:08:43]It has tons of views already. I highly recommend it, but I have to give him credit because that's where I got clarity on all of this. I mean, there's not much in the news that can get a reaction out of me. So, when this video struck a nerve with me, it hit me harder than I expected. And here is why.

[00:08:58]Because I can feel tiny versions of the temptation myself sometimes. The analytics checking, the proving instinct, the frustration when every video seems to underperform. That stuff's very real. But if you stop checking in with yourself and asking, "What is this doing to me psychologically? Am I good?" YouTube can hollow you out while convincing you you're winning. I mean, you just saw the personification of it in these clips.

[00:09:20]And honestly, that's what I think I'm looking at here. He's not some evil mastermind. It's something much sadder.

[00:09:25]A creator who seems unable to emotionally exist outside the machine anymore. Anyway, that's why I wanted to talk about this differently. Not as a dunk, not as a look at this awful guy, but as a warning because the internet rewards the exact traits that can slowly ruin people. Outrage, grievance, validation-seeking, constant crisis, the inability to log off and just exist as a normal human being for 10 minutes. And I say very sincerely, I think everyone who creates online has to take that seriously, including me, maybe especially me. What do you guys think?

[00:09:54]Am I being unfair to poor Jeremy at the corner? Do you think I'm reading too much into this? Or do you also see something deeper here than just internet drama? Let me know in the comments.

[00:10:02]Anyway, that's it for this video. Thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to watch my video. I really appreciate it. If you're new, welcome. I hope you enjoyed the video. Otherwise, do me a favor.

[00:10:12]Always put God first, and I will see you guys tomorrow. Thanks, guys. The propaganda is on every channel.

[00:10:20]They want Antifa [music] ruling everything like in Seattle.

[00:10:23]Put on your camo with your culture war and load the [music] ammo.

[00:10:27]And they want anyone who's fighting to They think we're stupid like the truth is just too hard to [music] handle.